Human-Wildlife Conflict Prevention

Human-wildlife conflicts precipitate significant economic losses and negative attitudes toward wild animals and conservation initiatives. By first reducing these conflicts as much as possible, Honeyguide and its partners provide tangible household benefits across large landscapes, thus strengthening livelihoods and improving the positive participation of communities in natural resource management, including support for the village game scout (VGS) teams that help protect all community resources, including livestock, farms, habitats, and wild animals.

Crop Protection

For Honeyguide, the prevention of human-wildlife conflict (HWC) takes the lead in our theory of change. The determination came not from us alone but mainly from communities themselves, who continually, via leadership meetings, household surveys, and focus group discussions, voiced their distress over how wild animals destroyed their crops and killed their livestock. Such conflicts can precipitate significant economic losses and negative attitudes toward wildlife and conservation initiatives in general. By first reducing these economic losses and conflicts as much as possible, Honeyguide and its partners provide tangible household benefits across large landscapes, thus strengthening livelihoods and improving the positive participation of communities in natural resource management.

“We have saved more crops this year than any other . Farmers and communities become so much more supportive of conservation when you help protect their livelihoods.”
– Loiruk A. Mollel, a Honeyguide HWC field officer

HWC Officers

How would you like to go without a single good night’s sleep for three months so you could chase enormous and ornery pachyderms away from the treats they savour in the middle of the night? Thought so. But that is the dangerous and thankless work of Honeyguide’s HWC officers and the rangers, community volunteers, and farmers they train and support. Whether they are collecting data on crop damage or putting up chili fences, HWC Officers and such volunteers are truly the unsung heroes of Honeyguide.

Human-Elephant Conflict Toolkit

Working with community youth volunteers and wildlife scouts, Honeyguide developed a Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) Toolkit that uses a sequential order of methods to prevent crop destruction. The objective of the HEC Toolkit is to cause elephants, over time, to react to some of the less confrontational deterrents, such as spotlights, chili fences, and bullhorns, thus decreasing the frequency of times needed to use more expensive and intrusive techniques and also enabling community volunteers to increasingly prevent human-wildlife conflicts themselves. Honeyguide monitors all HWC incidents across its project areas to always modify its strategies and adopt new innovative measures as needed.

Flashlight Saves Elephant Lives

Sometimes simple solutions are the best solutions, how can a simple flashlight save so many elephants lives? Honeyguide have been pioneering different tools and techniques to save both elephants and farmers lives. The simple flashlight has been one of our most successful tools, a powerful LED rechargeable flashlight that has proven to be 70% successful are removing elephants from crops and 90% effective at turning them around before they get into the farmers crops. The flashlight is a low invasive tool that only effect the elephants sight at night and since nearly all crop raiding takes place at night, this simple tool has be largely responsible from protecting farmers crops and therefore elephants from retaliatory killing.

“Since we started using these kits, no communities have been killed and no elephants, we see the value of these kits…after the crop harvest wildlife can pass over our farms freely”
– Member of Kakoi Songambele Village

Human Elephant Conflict Handbook

Elephants raiding crops challenges their coexistence with farmers. Communities need to introduce strategies to reduce losses and avoid lethal retaliation against the endangered species. This booklet has been developed by Honeyguide in collaboration with communities living adjacent to conservation areas directly affected by wildlife conflicts on their farms and in their bomas. It is based on practical lessons learned from three Community Wildlife Management Areas
(WMAs): Burunge WMA, Randilen WMA, and Enduimet WMA. These communities have implemented human elephants conflicts prevention for four years, and have gained invaluable experience and data. We have monitored each team’s progress and effectiveness, as well which elements of the Human-Elephant Conflict (HEC) Toolkit they have used- from LED Flashlights, Air Horns, Chili Crackers to Roman Candles, and further long-term deterrence strategies like Chili Fences and Chili Bricks.

Living Walls by Tanzania People & Wildlife

For more than a decade, Tanzania People & Wildlife has developed Living Walls, which are sustainable community-designed enclosures that protect livestock from lions and other animals. Living Walls have been proven to be 99% effective in keeping predators out of cattle corrals thus preventing them from killing livestock and eliminating retaliatory killings, as evidenced in a study published in Biodiversity Conservation (Lichtenfeld, et al. 2015). Today, TPW has constructed more than 750 Living Walls. Honeyguide partners with TPW to implement this critical program in various locations.

Human-Wildlife Conflict Prevention News

Honeyguide is working with local communities to provide simple solutions to human-wildlife conflict. Through the innovative use of basic tools and materials, Honeyguide’s Human Elephant Conflict Toolkit is enabling communities to live peacefully alongside elephants,

Young male leopard found in Lake Manyara By Ng’orongo Nyamoni Honeyguide Communication Manager Every day holds new challenges for the dedicated team of Honeyguide rangers working to conserve and protect wildlife in Burunge Wildlife Management

In recent weeks, rangers in Enduimet have rescued an adult female cheetah caught in a poacher's snare and a baby zebra stuck in a muddy pit near Manyara Ranch. Cheetah Rescue Her right paw ensnared

Honeyguide is a grass roots, non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Tanzania dedicated to support communities and the conservation of wildlife and natural resources through long-term community partnerships. The African Honeyguide is a bird that actively guides humans (and honey badgers) to beehives; we chose it as our symbol as it is a beautiful example of the symbiotic relationship between humans and wildlife and of successful partnerships in general.